Thursday, May 14, 2009

30-Day Persistence Challenge: How persistence created MySpace.com



Now, I'll admit that MySpace completely missed me. I went from LiveJournal to Facebook and Twitter. But any startup (read: us) takes lots of different attempts to get it right before you hit on the magic combination of great idea, right time, right business approach and good marketing. During all that practice, you learn the best way to present yourself, you hone your business sense. For us, the way we do that is by experiencing the ups and downs of querying and writing. We learn that this approach works with this kind of editor, that that structure works with this particular kind of query. We learn how to follow up and to meet editors and generally how to be in business. The fact that some stories fail to catch on with the markets we imagine doesn't mean we're failing. It means we're learning.

Sure, I like to think that our businesses are more respectable than spam or Asian porn, but they're still businesses. Tell me what you think.

1 comment:

Jennifer Fink said...

What a great clip! Over and over, I have to remind myself that the difference between the people who succeed and those who fail is that those who succeed keep trying. (There may be other differences too, but persistence is absolutely key.)

It can be so tempting at times to just give up, but if any of us want to make it, we have to just get back up and try again.

Jenny (aka a fellow Blogathoner)